International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 191

Teaching Critical Thinking and Metaliteracy Through OER
each semester students have been asked
to focus on four or five units, each highlighting
a current and controversial
political issue or concept. Students are
required to become familiar with alternative
perspectives on each issue or
concept and subsequently develop their
own positions. Topics were selected for
their potential to involve different contexts
for critical thinking—asking students,
for instance, to consider issues as
a generalist (making a budget) or as a
policymaker tasked with a very specific
role (handling the opioid crisis); or asking
students to consider issues where
they were likely to have strong opinions
(income inequality) in contrast to issues
with which they might be less familiar
(globalization). As examples, in the
fall 2019 semester the instructor developed
a unit on migration/immigration,
first considering some specific policies
(e.g., green light laws, sanctuary cities),
then stepping back to focus on broader
principles including the advantages and
disadvantages of open versus closed
borders and the relevance of theories of
American identity, finally cycling back
to apply these broader perspectives to
additional current-day issues. The generation
unit of the course asks students,
in light of the fact that people tend to
pay attention to demographic characteristics
such as race or gender over and
above any effect of age, to focus on what
it means to be part of a generation and
what impact “generation” might have as
they move forward with their lives. The
instructor and students then consider
aspects of “generation” (e.g., political
socialization, the acquisition of political
information, political participation)
that are particularly relevant to the lives
of younger generations and that also
enhance one’s critical thinking capabilities.
For example, the more you yourself
think about how you have been socialized,
the better you can reflect on your
own perspective, potentially making it
more likely that you will be able to sort
out the perspectives of others. The more
you become aware of the sources of information
you utilize, the more likely
you might be to take the initiative to
expand the range of available options.
Incorporation of Metaliteracy
When introducing metaliteracy
to the instructor,
the librarian described the
aforementioned metaliteracy learner
badges, which are specifically designed
for use in courses regardless of discipline
and are flexible in the content that
can be selected and, if desired, adapted.
While the learning system is structured
around four master badges, instructors
may choose to mix and match the
quests (the lowest level of activity) that
they assign. Students who complete the
full series of required activities are able
to earn a digital badge, attesting to their
competency, but interested instructors
can create badges that acknowledge
meaningful subsets of the content.
After discussion, activities were
selected from the metaliterate learner
badges that complemented course topics.
In particular, a variety of quests—
who wouldn’t be intrigued by the idea
of a quest particularly at the height of
HBO’s Game of Thrones series?—were
picked to increase student engage-
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